Toxic ideology

Just in time for Campaign for America's Future's new report on "Toxic Trade: Globalization and the Safety of the American Consumer," documenting how the budget and staff of the Consumer Protection Agency has been cut in half during the same period imports from nations with lax safety standards have exploded, the good folks at Consumer Union remind us of an unpleasant fact: the biggest danger for consumers comes not from toxic products that are recalled. The biggest danger comes from toxic products that aren't recalled.

"Our lab tests detected lead at widely varying levels in samples of dishware, jewelry, glue stick caps, vinyl backpacks, children's ceramic tea sets and other toys and items not on any federal recall list," they report after screening products from stores and consumers' homes in the New York metropolitan area using home lead testing kits and an X-ray fluorescence analyzer. (Worried? You can order your own lead-screning kit at the United Steelworkers' outstanding resource StopToxicImports.org.) For connoisseurs of irony, it turns out tots who are budding doctors are among those most at risk: one of the non-recalled lead-laden items Consumers Union found was a Fisher-Price blood pressure cuff from a toy medical kit.

A reminder: George Bush's chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission "has asked lawmakers in two letters not to approve the bulk of legislation that would increase the agency's authority, double its budget and sharply increase its dwindling staff." What to call this madness? Conservatism. Remember Ronald Reagan's inaugural address: "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future